Port Orford and Gold Beach::day nine

Even though our time in Port Orford was great last night with an excellent meal and a drive through the town, today was a bust! We went to Paradise Cafe for breakfast. It was the worst of the trip so far. The decor was warm and cabin like but the food, thumbs down and one waitress was bitching about our waitress, when she went on break, to folks I assume were the locals. So tacky! Our waitress did leave a couple of us hanging while she was on her break but still, the other gal should have kept it between them.

This cute little boy was sitting on the other side of the restaurant and was flirting with Flower so much. It was really cute.
We had some fun things to look forward to. We went to the Historic Hughes House which was constructed in 1898. I love going through old homes and was really looking forward to it. Imagine our disappointment to find that it was closed. Our brochure stated that it was open Thursday thru Monday. Not so according to the sign on the window. It stated they were open Tuesday thru Sunday. Nice. It was a really beautiful area and fun to read about so we did enjoy it and still got some photos.











Our next planned stop was the Cape Blanco Lighthouse. We wondered if we'd run into the same issue with it being closed. Sure enough, it was closed. Again we got some photos of the views of the ocean but none of the lighthouse due to the fog.





It was a bummer that it was all closed and now we were done with Port Orford.
We were so excited about something REALLY fun in Gold Beach.
When we arrived in Gold Beach we went to check out our camp spot at Oceanside RV Park. It wasn't all that pretty but it's the closest spot we've had to the ocean so that made up for it! We walked around and browsed in all the shops nearby. Flower picked out some fun stickers. We got an ice cream treat at Cone Amor. Holy cow the portions were huge! We easily could have shared one but received them all before we realized it. We ended up leaving most of them in the bus(which gave us milkshakes tonight) and then boarded our boat! We went on a jet boat tour of the Rogue River! This was definitely another highlight of the trip! We LOVED it. It was Flower's first time on a boat and she was so excited. We left at 2:30 pm. We travelled for 2 hours seeing some truly beautiful country! Wow, I really must have been concentrating on something with that look. :)




We really had to bundle up for the first half of the trip. They even provide coats and blankets.


Cheetos hands.


Sean was our guide for about a half hour. Apparently he had been really sick so he called in a back up. They switched on a sand bar.

This gal was standing on the bridge way above us taking our photo as we went under.
This is a picture of the picture we bought in the gift shop after the tour. Since I don't have a scanner here in the bus, it will have to do. We are in the middle on the fourth seat from the back. Flower is throwing her 'rock on' sign. :) If you click on the photo it will enlarge it and hopefully you can see us better.

These are actually Cliff Swallow birds nests all along the underside of the bridge. Very cool.



There were lots of Osprey flying around and tons and tons of their nests atop the trees.






KG was the photog for all of the above photos of the journey. Now it's my turn. :)
We actually got splashed and it went right on my camera!

Did you notice we've shed some layers. It was amazing that halfway to our destination it got about 20 degrees warmer! Yessss! Love that warm weather. Of course we were warned of this and told to layer, and layer we did.


Way cool tree!

This was our second guide Scott. He was cute and had fun stories. His grandpa has had a home on the river since he was a kid so that provided some tales to tell.


We arrived in the quaint little town of Agness where we ate dinner. We were able to choose between three stops depending on what we were in the mood for. Those on the boat were equally devided between the three stops. We chose to eat at the Singing Spring Ranch.After dinner we kind of broke away from the group and walked to the local store and kind of wandered the beautiful area. It was so peaceful.
Poor KG had a headache and massaging his neck.


These signs cracked us up!
KG spotted this grouping of trees that had grown together into one gigantor tree. It was awesome.
Can you spot KG and Flower?
How 'bout now?
This is what it looked like standing on the inside and looking up. So beautiful!
Seriously sweet. This would be a lovely spot to hang out and read for hours.
I just could not get enough of these red trees with their light green foliage.




Everything was just so lush and green.

My imagination runs wild with the possibilities of this tree and what inhabits it! Elves perhaps?

They have the coolest trees!


We re-boarded the boat at 6:30.
I absolutely love it when Flower wants to hold my hand!

I love a gorgeous sunset! Especially when the sun is still trying to break through the clouds and makes it's presence known. It's so romantic.



This is the point at which KG took over the camera again because it was now too cold for me to care about taking photos! :)
It's hard to tell but the Osprey, the one with the white head, had a fish under his talons and the buzzards were trying to get it away from him. To afraid to move he just stood on it.

It was so fun to ride right next to another boat. Our guides raced each other for a bit!




Beautiful.
And now we're coming back into the fog. We arrived safely back at Gold Beach at 8:00.

We are now all bundled up in our camp spot listening to the fog horn blow every few minutes.